How to Sew a Cat Bed

When we brought Smilla the cat home the first time I realized that we didn’t have a bed for her. We got the climbing pole, the cage, the food, the toilet, the sand, a comb, the grass and a bowl to grow it in, toys, the cat and even cat candy… But no basket! It was just to expensive to buy, over 400 SEK at the pet shop. I put together a little bed for her out of a paper box. I put the paper box under our bed so that she could find a quiet and peaceful place to rest when everything was new and lots of people came around for my birthday. She liked to sleep there, in the beginning.

Now she feels safe and sleeps anywhere, in my lap right now. But still, every cat needs a cat bed, right? After visiting my friend Christina I saw how her mother had crafted a really nice cat basket or bed for their cats. I decided to do the same! And to craft a little tutorial for those of you who wants to do the same for the cat(s) in your life…
Smilla loves her basket! And I love how it looks with her inside! I’ve tried to make a tutorial, I know lots of you have cats.

Tutorial on how to sew a cat basket

I used a thrifted curtain in thick rosy fabric and exclusively for this purpose bought foam-rubber. One package was about 100 SEK and I used almost all of that. So total cost about 100 SEK really, the curtain fabric was just laying around doing no good.

1. Make a pattern and decide how big the floor of the basket should be. I used a round plastic container to make this pattern out of magazine paper.

Then cut out the foam-rubber. I cut three of these to make a really thick and cozy bed bottom.

2. Cut out two pieces of fabric and measure how thick and long the edge piece should be and cut that out too.

3. Use your sewing machine (or do it by hand if you prefer) and sew the edge of the fabric to one of the floor fabric pieces.

4. Now it is time to make the wall of the basket, and it should cover the rounding of the floor and be high enough for the cat to easily get into and out of the basket and short enough so that it is warm and cozy in there.

I measured the rounding of the floor and then cut what was left of the foam rubber. I sewed together two pieces of fabric and put the foam rubber piece inside of them so and then sewed all of it on place like you see in the picture:

5. Now it is time to add the floor fabric piece. Pin it in place all the way around, close to the wall and front of the cat basket.

6. I hand stitched (with pink thread) all the way around to fasten it in place, to make the bed surface as smooth as possible. Took a bit of time, but was well worth it.

It’s starting to look like a sofa, right?

7. When it was time to add the ceiling, a funny thing happened. As soon as I placed the edge of the roof on the cat basket Smilla jumped down from her rest, came to me on the floor – and went straight into her basket. Guess if that put a huge smile on my face? Yes it did. I was oh so moved and pleased that she liked it!

So then you just cut and hand sew the roof in place (stretch it a bit) and let your cat enjoy a warm, cozy and cute place to sleep in!

Good luck!

Tell me if you see any other cat crafty things around please, or check out my tutorial page for more fun crafty/artsy ideas.

Thank you for sharing such a wonderful tutorial! I will make the bed for our new kitty. I love that it uses all materials I have on hand including the foam rubber. ( it came as packing material and really is like new) I look forward to your blog each day. You are such a creative woman!

I had to call my husband over to look at this post, your Smilla could have come from the same litter as our Sully! He actually asked me “When did you make that???” I had to show him that the picture wasn’t of our cat!
I have started 3 of these (one per cat!) from your excellent tutorial!